In the last year or so, I've been trying to go back and read a lot of the classic science fiction/fantasy that I never got around to reading back in the day. For the most part, this has been a treat. Unfortunately, not this time.I've read other books by Lieber, and while they were not my favorites, I enjoyed them - this one, not so much. Maybe it's me - I had difficulty figuring out what the context of the story was and why things were happening the way they were. At any rate, I found reading this to be more work than pleasure.